The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 to three American economists whose work established the critical role of inclusive economic and political institutions for ending humanity's state of abject poverty. The winners are MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, and University of Chicago economist James Robinson—all three are immigrants to this country.
The Nobel committee focused on the economists' analyses of how differences in European colonial institutions affected the eventual prosperity (or not) of regions colonized by various European countries. However, it is worth noting that the institutional changes that spark sustained innovation and economic growth first occurred in a few of those colonizing countries. Classical liberals and libertarians have long endorsed the Nobelists' main claim that countries that evolved inclusive institutions, e.g., free markets, property rights, the rule of law, and democratic governance will tend to prosper. Whereas those that retain extractive institutions will remain stuck in immemorial poverty. As the researchers show, colonized regions to which inclusive institutions were exported have tended to prosper whereas those on which extractive institutions were imposed have not.
